Saturday, April 27, 2013

The New Jim Crow

In The New Jim Crow,
Michelle Alexander argues that the United States’ drug laws, coupled
with its law enforcement and penal cultures, have ushered in a new era of
discrimination, segregation, and 2nd class citizenship for African Americans.

In building her case, Alexander first demonstrates how
law enforcement practices have become increasingly abusive, both physically and
of the law. She then scrutinizes the penal system as a whole, revealing how
dramatically the ranks of the imprisoned have swelled since the declaration of
the drug war. That war is waged not against the manufacturers of narcotics in South America, but against their users; the streets and
homes are the battlefield, through which the police storm through in full riot
gear. Next, she elaborates on the
traumatic consequences of being touched by the penal system; a mistaken arrest,
not even a conviction, can haunt an individual for life, ruining their ability
to find work and housing both on the market and through government assistance.
So much as touching a joint can warrant an individual being thrown into a
sinkhole of self-perpetuating despair and poverty.

Although each point is condemning on its own, throughout
the text Alexander emphasizes the disproportionate way they impact
African-American families. The police kick down the doors of black apartments,
not white suburbs, even though drug use is statistically the same across ethnic
lines. Blacks, not whites, are most subject to arbitrary traffic stops and
unconstitutional drug searches. The result of these policies and practices is
that African-American families and communities have been destroyed: millions of
black men are in prison, and millions more unable to build a life for
themselves through honest toil after having been branded a criminal. The chief
weakness of her approach is that drug use is voluntary, something Alexander
counters only with pointing toward the double standard which exists wherein
blacks are punished hard for the same crime that whites are ignored for
violating. (This is a a valid point, to be sure, though it doesn’t seem quite
the match for countering the criticism.)

The old Jim Crow separated blacks from whites, relegating
them to the sides or beneath the status of whites, through segregation and
disenfranchisement. Although law enforcement and penal practices were not arranged
deliberately against blacks like Jim Crow, the effects of the two sets of laws,
Jim Crow and drug war, are strikingly the same:
the act of being discriminated against by agents of government strangles
any notion of citizenship among black youth in the cradle, while destroying
their ability to create a life and stable family for themselves and become
constructive members of society.The New
Jim Crow exposes the lie that discrimination is a thing of the past; bigotry and abuse are plainly rampant. The
work stands as a penetrating criticism of the United States’ prison system, which
as much a stain on its human rights record as Jim Crow or slavery. This is one
well worth reading.